Will the cable company amplifier/splitter work with an ota antenna to provide better signal at multiple Tv's?

It should. Cant answer 100% without a model of the cable amp though.

If you are asking if the cable company's parts will work for distribution from an off air antenna, the answer is generally yes if the components are rated from 5 MHz to 1,000 MHz.

If you are asking about 'providing better signal,' it is all relative.  Garbage in, garbage out.  You'll never be able to supply a better signal to the TVs than what your antenna is receiving.

Assuming you have a properly mounted and aimed antenna, you'll be able to maintain proper signal strength at each TV but only if you exercise proper RF engineering in the distribution system.

Likewise, if you're receiving a crap signal and add an amplifier, you are simply amplifying crap ending up with more crap.

I get good signal to one tv but going through a splitter it degrades so I was wondering if cable amp/splitter would help.

If you have good signal and just need to distribute, it should work just fine.

Well, maybe. "Yes" ignores too many variables.

Look up the range of channel frequencies that cable uses and the range of frequencies that OTA uses (this should be part of your technical files anyway).

You'll find that while there is a lot of overlap between the ranges of frequencies used by the two services, it's not 100%. This could bring about poor reception of some channels. An amp optimized for cable won't work well with all OTA channels, and vice versa.

An amp that covers ALL the frequencies up to 1 GHz should work to amplify the signal. However, that doesn't meant that it will help. You might have multipath interference; you might have a hugely strong signal that overloads an amp such that it can't cleanly amplify weak stations.

Go to tvfool.com and pretend you're shopping for an antenna. You will get a lot of info on what to do. If you have further questions, come back here and ask.

The antenna systems I've done range from just an antenna to one TV, to an antenna system with VHF channels equalized to the same voltage level with local sources on channels 3 and 6, going to more than 400 TVs and 60 FM receivers.

I've found with digital antenna signals that amplifying too much can look worse than too little signal.

And I wonder why my area basically requires a cable/sat subscription. Using that site that you provided Ernie really hits it home.

Here in Ledyard, CT. The website suggests that 3 channels can come in with a simple indoor antenna. 8 to 9 with an attic antenna and about 10 more with a roof mount. Which will mostly be a repeat of ABC, CBS, FOX and such.

15 years ago when I did have a roof mount antenna. I probably received 10 channels total. As stated before, mostly a repeat of the national stations.

KOT

I don't know if that site is accurate because I get around 40 channels when that site only says a handful.

You might have some local High School/College broadcasts. There will also be some small, independent city or borough.
While they will all be (or should be) registered with FCC, tvfool might not have them listed.
What you will find is main, national, mega channels that will be listed.

twmoonly,
Does it say that they will all come in as well as one another? Does it say they are all in the same direction from you? Receiving signals from multiple directions is not simple, so let's start with the answers to those two questions. If you want to give me your zip code or some other location information, including local terrain, or particular stations you WANT to receive, I'd be glad to give some thought to where your main aim should be.

No they are not all the same, also they are from all around. my zip code is 28037. I have it aimed south between charlotte and concord.

So, basically southeast, with the angle between the two towns about 45 degrees.

Directional antennas for medium range should work well with this. One thing, though: The more elements an antenna has, the narrower is its area of high sensitivity. I see that Charlotte is about 60 miles away. An antenna with enough gain to receive those stations, if pointed at Charlotte, might not have a wide enough reception pattern to receive stations from Concord. Vice versa applies and aiming between the two locations might give you slightly crappy signals on everything.

When I look at the TVfool map for your location, I see 34 is generally in the direction of Charlotte. The channel list tells me that's an azimuth of magnetic 145 degrees. Looking further at the channel list, Charlotte looks like it's got eight stations with strong enough signals to receive them at your location.

Don't miss the fact that the further down on the list you go, the weaker the signals are if you aim straight at them. Since you can't even aim at most of them, they're of no use to you.

Is WUNG your favorite station? It's the only station shown as being in the direction of Concord, and aiming to get it lessens your Charlotte signals.

I'd look seriously at aiming southwest. Four of the strongest signals come from that direction and from only about a dozen miles away! There's no city there, so I'm guessing there's a mountain there.

I just stopped writing another one of my essays, figuring instead that I'll write it if you want it. The topic is combining signals from different directions. It's not simple and results not totally predictable, but it might be possible since Charlotte and that southwest location are generally about 90 degrees apart from one another at your location.

?? The reason is that the cable company and satellite company have installed and continue to maintain (at some level or other) equipment that gets the signal to you.


And if you are satisfied with those stations, you still, to this day, don't have to pay for TV signals.

Let's not lose sight of the reality behind the apparent reality.

You say your area requires a cable or sat subscription. Not exactly. Your choice that you MUST have a selection of channels greater than your OTA possibilities -- THAT is what requires a cable or sat subscription. It is completely your choice. Remove that "MUST" and your subscriptions are not needed.

We have been installing OTA antennas in the Washington DC area for over 38 years. Our installs typically bring in over 50 channels off an outdoor antenna.

Of those 50 channels there are the primary HD channels for the major broadcaster, such as ABC, NBC, Fox, CBS, MyTV, WB, PBS, and Ion. Also included are sub channels in SD that will show movies, SCI-FI, retro TV channels that will show old TV series, health and home shows, a car channel, and others. Now of those 50 there are around 20 channels of foreign language programs and religious channels that I would never watch.

Plus the quality of the HD signal is much better than anything that the compressed HD from cable or satellite provides.

Dave, you are completely correct and congrats on staying in the antenna business.

The pickings in twmoonly's area are a lot slimmer and all over the compass. I've dealt with a couple of multidirectional antenna setups before and they're quite a mess. I like Los Angeles a lot, where all antennas bow down in one direction! It's all good until you get into the hills and canyons, or until someone wants HBO, Showtime, CNN....